Henry Kissinger

In reading the George Black and R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. columns (Sept. 22) on Henry Kissinger, I wondered how two people could come to such different conclusions about the same person. My answer: the frame of reference each writer used to evaluate Kissinger's behavior and accomplishments. Philosophers and ethicists call this debate one of means and ends. Black says that means (process or the way you do something) are as important as ends. Tyrrell says that ends (in this case a strong foreign policy)

Click here to download TV listings for the week Dec. 30, 2012 - Jan. 5, 2012 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SATURDAY Good Morning America (N) 7 a.m. KABC The Chris Matthews Show Best and worst of 2012: Katty Kay, BBC; Michael Duffy, Time; Helene Cooper, the New York Times; Sam Donaldson, ABC. (N) 5 p.m. KNBC; Sunday 5:30 a.m. KNBC McLaughlin Group (N) 6:30 p.m. KCET SUNDAY Today A day with Ina Garten; the 60th anniversary of MAD Magazine.

Precisely 25 years to the day that he and then-President Richard Nixon began their historic journey to China, Henry Kissinger will commemorate the Feb. 17 event with a visit to the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace. The former secretary of State, the designer of Nixon's so-called "balance of power" approach to foreign policy, will give a speech on American relations with Asia. "I know that President Nixon would be touched and pleased to know that Dr.

WASHINGTON — If the Transportation Security Administration wants to fix its poor public image, it might want to stop patting down recognizable passengers such as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. "There are certain people that are just so well-known that you've just got to use your common sense," said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Transportation Subcommittee. "Because if you start patting them down, people are going to say, 'They're patting down Beyonce.' "I mean, she's not going to blow a plane up. " In an acknowledgment of continued public frustration with TSA, the subcommittee met Thursday to address the agency's efforts to fix its "poor customer service image and become a leaner, smarter agency.

Henry Kissinger puts himself on the line, but not for Valentine kisses. He's agreed to be roasted (good-naturedly, he hopes) March 9 at the USC School of Public Administration fifth annual Ides of March Dinner in the Ballroom of the Beverly Wilshire. Prominent attorney John Argue is dinner chairman; former President Gerald Ford is honorary chairman. Johnny Grant will monitor the barbs. Among dinner co-chairmen are Pamela Anderson, John Attwood, Margaret Brock, Robert Dockson, Carl and Mrs.

Henry Kissinger's most recent book, "Diplomacy," is the perfect gift for a rich nation that seems to have everything. Everything, Kissinger argues persuasively, except a foreign policy free of perpetually conflicting ideologies. On one side stand defenders of a nation's right to use its power wisely; on the other, those who view America's primary diplomatic mission to be sowing democracy as widely as possible. A concept called "the balance of power" makes room for both perspectives.

Henry Kissinger is not a nice man. Funny sometimes, clever always, but not nice. Christopher Hitchens, as is his wont, makes the point a little more strongly: He wants Kissinger tried for crimes against humanity. He argues that many of Kissinger's "partners in crime" have been punished, and he is angered by Kissinger's ability to avoid prosecution.

Each new American President chooses those of his predecessors whose portraits he wants to hang in the Cabinet Room. In the Nixon White House, certainly Eisenhower, Nixon's political patron, had to be one of them, but "the President most admired by Nixon," Henry Kissinger tells us in this analysis of European and American diplomacy, "was Woodrow Wilson." Franklin Roosevelt also chose to hang Wilson's portrait in the Cabinet Room.

Readers of Harper's magazine this winter may be feeling a sense of '60s and '70s deja vu. The reason? There, in a two-part, 40,000-word series by journalist Christopher Hitchens, is a rounding indictment of Henry Kissinger, the modern-day Metternich who guided--or, some would say, misguided--American foreign policy from the late-Vietnam era through the Ford administration.

The only time I ever felt sorry for Henry Kissinger was when an editor offered me his biography to review. The opening sentence of the dust-jacket copy alone is enough to make you want to rethink your faith in democracy: "By the time he was made Secretary of State in 1973, Kissinger had become, according to the Gallup Poll, the most admired person in America." But what strikes you then about this wonderful, entertaining, definitive biography by Walter Isaacson is its unyielding fairness.

By Newt Gingrich's telling, President Obama is a secular socialist running the most radical administration in U.S. history - a weakling abroad and a threat to the religious freedom of pious Christians at home. Gingrich's portrayal of Obama is a staple of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. On Thursday, the former House speaker distilled his case in a blistering string of accusations that opened his day of campaigning in Mississippi, where bashing Obama is catnip to Republicans.

The Partnership Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb Philip Taubman Harper: 496 pp., $29.99 The op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal caught the nuclear world by surprise. Not for the argument it made but for who was making it. The piece ran five years ago this month, under the headline "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons," and was written by a remarkable bipartisan quartet of political figures: former secretaries of State Henry A. Kissinger(Nixon)

A computer hacking group has revealed email addresses and other personal data from former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, and hundreds of U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and military officials in a high-profile case of cyber-theft. The unauthorized release of account information for 860,000 subscribers to Stratfor, a Texas-based company that provides analysis of national and international affairs, makes it possible to identify some subscribers and, in theory, impersonate them in cyberspace, analysts warned.

Lawrence S. Eagleburger, the wisecracking, chain-smoking diplomat who charmed both Republicans and Democrats, handled tense assignments during the first Persian Gulf War and rose up the ranks to become secretary of State toward the end of President George H.W. Bush's administration, has died. He was 80. Eagleburger died Saturday after a short illness in Charlottesville, Va., a family spokeswoman told the Associated Press. No other details were given. Eagleburger headed the State Department for about five months.

On China Henry Kissinger Penguin Press: 586 pp., $36 Henry Kissinger was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for negotiating the Paris peace accords that established a ceasefire in the Vietnam War and let the United States extricate itself from that quagmire. But his most enduring achievement, this massive book suggests, was in laying the groundwork for President Richard M. Nixon's historic 1972 trip to Beijing, shaping the communiqués that ultimately led to formal diplomatic relations with China and then acting as a go-between for the world's most powerful nation and its most populous for the next four decades.

As congress debates the war in Iraq, it's becoming clear that many lawmakers want to bring the troops home while avoiding the likely consequences -- a ruinous civil war and a calamitous victory for Iran and Al Qaeda. This has led to much pining for some kind of negotiated solution -- what the Iraq Study Group called a "new diplomatic offensive" -- that might allow us a graceful exit. Enter Henry Kissinger, the octogenarian "wise man" who is an advisor to President Bush.

As if bolted to the floor, he stood like an inert stump before a video projection of a map of the United States. His carriage was typically stiff, his face a frozen mask of dourness, his baritone voice a droning, somber monotone. It was . . . it was. . . . Henry Kissinger. Doing the weather forecast. Reporting temperatures for such familiar spots as Egypt and Palestine. That's Palestine, Ala.: "I'm sorry to see volatile conditions still occurring." Yes, he did say that.

With "Years of Renewal," Henry Kissinger concludes his mountainous three-volume memoir of his years in power.

Donald H. Rumsfeld came to the job of Defense secretary determined not only to remake the U.S. military, but to recast the Pentagon's role in national security. He arrived with a prescription for what he believed ailed the Pentagon. As he later put it in one of his famous "snowflake" memos -- so named by staffers because they arrived in a constant blizzard -- the department was "tangled in its anchor chain."

What's a trip to the capital of China without running into Henry Kissinger? Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in the midst of a 16-day trade mission to East Asia, has been staying in the same hotel as the former secretary of State -- the St. Regis in Beijing's embassy district. A businessman in the mayors' delegation who has a connection to Kissinger arranged a meeting between the two. Kissinger received Villaraigosa for 30 minutes in his suite Monday evening. The guest list was short.